Mrs. Carlyon proposed a walk to Ella that lovely October afternoon, after making an inquiry or two in the household about the unpleasant topic touched on by the Squire. The air was mellow and gracious; and they took their way to the sands, seating themselves on the very spot where Ella had once sat with Edward Conroy. Never did she sit there but she thought of him; of what he had said; of his looks and tones. She wondered whether he was in Africa; she wondered when she should hear of him.
It was low water, and where the vanished tide had been was now a tract of firm yellow sand with hardly a pebble in it; excellent to walk upon. Not till the solitude of the shore was about them did Mrs. Carlyon say a word to her companion on the subject that she had to break to her--their journeying together abroad.
Ella was astonished, hurt; perhaps even a little indignant. Could her uncle really wish her to leave him and to go away for so long when he needed companionship and care? Mrs. Carlyon quietly soothed her, persuaded, reassured her; and finally told her that it wasbest it should so be.
Allowing her niece to go in alone, Mrs. Carlyon turned her steps towards the little inn--the Leaning Gate. She had her curiosity about the doings of that past snowy night in February, just as other people had. The conversation with the Squire and with Dorothy Stone only served to whet it, to puzzle her more than ever, if that were possible; and to enhance her sympathy for poor Katherine's family.
Mrs. Keen was waiting upon a customer who had halted at the inn for the day; Susan had taken her work into the garden. Mrs. Carlyon found her there seated on a rustic bench; she was hemming some new chamber towels. It was a large and pretty garden, filled with homely flowers in summer and with useful vegetables. A great bush of Michaelmas daisies was in blossom now, near the end of the bench. Susan sat without a bonnet, and the sunlight fell on her smooth brown hair, so soft and fine, just the same pretty hair that Katherine had: indeed, there had been a great resemblance between the sisters. She looked neat as usual--a small white apron on over her dark gown, a white collar at the neck. When she saw Mrs. Carlyon she got up to make her courtesy, and the tears filled her mournful grey eyes. That lady sat down by her and began to speak in a sympathising tone of the past trouble.
"It is not past, ma'am," said Susan, in answer to a remark; "it never will be."
"My good girl, I wanted to talk to you," said Mrs. Carlyon; "I came on purpose. What I have heard about you grieves me so much----"
But here she stopped, for Mrs. Keen came running from the house to greet the visitor. The landlady was a comely woman with ample petticoats and a big white apron.
Naturally, there could be only the one theme of conversation. The tears ran down Mrs. Keen's ruddy cheeks as they talked. Susan was pale, more delicate-looking than ever, and her eyes, dry now, had a far-off look in them. How greatly she put Mrs. Carlyon in mind of Katherine that lady did not choose to say.
"I can understand all your distress, all your trouble," spoke she in a sympathising tone. "And theuncertaintyas to what became of her must be harder to bear than all else."
"Somethingmust have interrupted her when she had just begun to undress; that seems to be evident, ma'am," said the mother. "She had taken off her cap and apron, her collar and ribbon--and all else that she had on disappeared with her. The question is, what that something could be. Susan thinks--but I'm afraid she thinks a great deal that is but idleness," broke off the mother, with a fond pitying glance at the girl.
"What does Susan think?" asked Mrs. Carlyon.
Susan lifted her white face to answer. The vacant look it mostly wore was very perceptible now; her tone became dull and monotonous.
"Ma'am," she said, "I think that when Katherine had just got those few things off, somebody came to her door, and--and----"
"And what?" said Mrs. Carlyon, for the girl had stopped.
"I wish I knew what. I wish I could think what; but I can't. Some days I think he must have taken her out of the room, and some days I think he killed her in it. It fairly dazes me, ma'am."
"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" again questioned Mrs. Carlyon, wondering whether the girl had anyone in particular in her mind.
"It must have been some stranger, some wicked man that we don't know--or a woman," answered Susan, slowly. "Miss Winter had gone down then, and was out of hearing."
"But there was no stranger at Heron Dyke that night, either man or woman," objected Mrs. Carlyon. "Only the women-servants, old Aaron, the Squire, and Miss Winter."
"Somebody might have been hid in the house. She'd not go out of the room, ma'am, of her own accord."
"Not unless she had something to go for," said Mrs. Carlyon; "though I do not see what it was likely to be," she slowly added. "Or, if she did go out, why did she not go back again?"
"Ma'am," spoke the landlady, "against that theory there's the fact that she left the candle behind her. Miss Winter found it burnt down to the socket. If she had gone out of the room she would have taken the light with her."
"It is a great mystery," mused Mrs. Carlyon. "What could have become of her? Where can she be?"
"She was hurt in some way, or else frightened," said Susan. "Screams of terror, those two were, that I heard."
"With regard to those screams," returned Mrs. Carlyon, "the singular thing is that no one else heard them; no one in the house."
"Tom Barnet heard them, ma'am, the coachman's boy," interposed the mother, smoothing down the sleeve of her lilac cotton gown. "I can't think there's any doubt but that the screams came from Katherine. I'd give--I'd give all I'm worth to know where she is, dead or alive."
"She is inside Heron Dyke!" cried Susan, her voice taking a sound of awe.
"Nonsense," somewhat impatiently rebuked Mrs. Carlyon. "You ought to know that it cannot be, Susan."
Susan lifted her patient face, a pleading kind of look on it.
"Ma'am, she's there; she's there. I've seen her at the window of her room in the moonlight; it's three times now."
"Run in, Susie; I thought I heard the gentleman's bell," spoke her mother, and Susan gathered up her work and went. But Mrs. Carlyon saw it was only a ruse to get rid of her.
"She is growing almost silly upon the point, ma'am," Mrs. Keen began; "thinking she sees her sister at the window. I believe it's all fancy, for my part; nothing but the reflection of some tree branches cast on the window-blind by the moon."
"Why don't you forbid her going up to Heron Dyke in the dark?" sensibly asked Mrs. Carlyon. "It cannot be good for her."
"Because, ma'am, I'm feared that if I did, her mind would quite lose its balance," replied the mother. "I do stop her all I can; but I dare not do it quite always. The going up there to watch the windows for Katherine has become like meat and drink to her."
Mrs. Carlyon sighed. Throughout the interview the landlady had never ceased to wipe her tears away; they rose in spite of her. It was altogether a very distressing case, and Mrs. Carlyon wished it had occurred anywhere rather than at Heron Dyke.
"I suppose Katherine had no trouble? She was not in bad spirits?" she remarked.
"She had no trouble in the world that I know of; there was none that she could have. Susan met her in Nullington the morning of the very day it happened, and she was as blithe as could be. Miss Winter was making some underthings for the poor little neglected Tysons, and found she had not got enough material to cut out the last, so she sent Katherine for another yard of it, charging her to make haste. Well, ma'am, Susan met her, as I tell you; and, as Katherine was going back to the Hall, she saw me standing at the door here. 'I hear you have heard from John, mother,' she called out; and her face was bright and her voice cheerful as a lark's; 'Susan says she will bring me up the letter this evening.' 'Come in for it now, child,' I answered her. 'No,' she said, 'if I came in I should be sure to stop talking with you, and Miss Winter is waiting for what I've been to fetch. You'll let Susan bring it up this evening, mother.' 'If the weather holds up,' I answered, glancing at the skies, which seemed to threaten a fall of some sort; 'but her cold hangs about her, and I can't let her go out at night if rain comes on.' With that she nodded to me and ran on laughing; she used to think it a joke, the care I took of Susan. No, ma'am," concluded the mother, "my poor Katherine was in no trouble of mind."
Mrs. Carlyon went back to the Hall full of thought. One thing she could not understand--how it was, if Katherine had screamed, that she should have been heard out of doors, and not indoors. And Mrs. Carlyon, that same evening, when she was dressing for dinner, sent Higson for Dorothy Stone, telling the maid she need not come back; and she put the question to Dorothy.
Mrs. Stone went into a twitter forthwith. The least allusion to the subject invariably sent her into one. No, the cry had not been heard indoors, she answered. Neither by the master nor Miss Ella, who were shut up in the oak sitting-room, nor by her and the maids in the kitchen. But the north wing was ever so far off, and she did not think they could have heard it. The only one about the house was Aaron, and he ought to have heard it, if any scream had been screamed.
"And he did not hear it?" spoke Mrs. Carlyon.
"Aaron heard nothing, ma'am," replied the housekeeper. "The corridors and passages, above and below, were just as silent as they always are, inside this great lonely house at night; and that's as silent as the grave. Aaron was locking up, and could well have heard any scream in the north wing. He was longer than usual that night, as it chanced, for he got his oil, and was oiling the front-door lock, which had grown a bit rusty. Had there been any noise in the north wing, screaming, or what not, he could not have failed to hear it: and for that reason he holds to it to this day that there was none; that the screams Susan Keen professed to hear were just her flighty fancy."
"And do you think so, Dorothy?"
"Ma'am, I don't know what to say," answered the old woman, pushing back her grey hair, as she was apt to do when in a puzzle of thought. "I should think it was the girl's fancy but for Tom Barnet. Tom holds to it that the two screams were there, sure enough, just as Susan does; the last a good deal fainter than the first."
"There's the dinner-gong!" exclaimed Mrs. Carlyon, as the sound boomed up from below. "And none of my ornaments on yet. Clasp this bracelet for me, will you, Dorothy. We will talk more of this another time. Dr. Jago dines here to-night, I hear: what a fancy the Squire seems to have taken to him!"
The day of departure was here, bringing with it Ella's last afternoon at Heron Dyke for several weeks, or it might be, for several months to come. Her uncle's will in the matter, combined with Mrs. Carlyon's, had conquered her own. Dr. Jago added his influence in the shape of a warning, that his patient must on no account be irritated by contradiction or he would not be answerable for the consequences.
Ella felt that there was no other course open to her than to yield; but she cried many bitter tears in secret. She did not want to leave home at all just now, although ten days or a fortnight in Paris might have proved a pleasant change. But to go away for a whole winter, and so far away too, was certainly something that she had never contemplated. It was true that Mr. Denison seemed better in health, much better; but, for all that, she had a presentiment which she could not get rid of, that if she left him now she should never see him again in this world. Still, she had to obey her uncle's wishes.
And now the last afternoon was here, and waning quickly. She had bidden farewell to Maria Kettle, to Lady Cleeve, and all other friends; she had taken her last walk along the shore, her last look at the garden and grounds, each familiar spot had been visited in turn; and it seemed to her as though she were bidding them farewell for ever. She and Mrs. Carlyon were going up to London by the evening train; they would spend a couple of days in town and then cross by the Dover boat.
Through the leaden-paned windows of Mr. Denison's sitting-room the rays of the October sun shone wanly, lighting up a point of panelling here and there, or lending a momentary freshness, a forgotten grace, to one or other of the faded portraits on the walls. As the sick man sat there in his big leathern chair, his dim eyes wandered now and again to the motto of his family where, lighted by the sun, it shone out in colours blood-red and golden high up in the central window. There was a ring of worldly pride in the words, of the strength and the glory of possession. "What I have I hold." How much longer would he, the living head of the house, continue to hold anything of that which earth had given him? Already the cold airs of the grave blew about him: already he seemed to hear the dread words, "Ashes to ashes," while from the sexton's clay-stained fingers a little earth was crumbled on to his coffin lid. "What I have I hold." Vain mockery! when the grim Captain whispers in your ear, and bids you follow him.
Ella sat on a low hassock at her uncle's knee. One of her hands was tightly grasped in his, while his other hand stroked her hair fondly. It was a gaunt and bony hand, and seemed all unfitted for such loving usages. They spoke to each other in low tones, with frequent pauses between. To any stranger there, who could have heard their voices but not their words, it would have seemed as if they were discussing some trivial topic of every-day life. But both Ella and the Squire had determined that they would keep a strict guard over their feelings. Neither of them would let the other see the emotions at work below, though each might guess at their existence. Dr. Jago had warned the young lady to make her parting as quiet a one as possible: excitement of any kind was hurtful to his patient. Mr. Denison's proud hard nature could not entirely change itself, even at a time like the present; besides which, he wanted to make the separation as little distressing to Ella as might be. It maybe that he felt that if she were to break down at the last moment and betray much emotion, his own veneer of stoicism might not prove of much avail.
"I think, Uncle Gilbert, you understand clearly the arrangements made for our communicating with each other while I am away?" said Ella.
"I think so, my pretty one. You can go over them again if you like."
"I will write to you once a week, and send you a telegram as often as we leave one place for another. Hubert Stone will write to me in your name every Monday to save you from fatigue; and you must write sometimes yourself. Should your health change in the slightest degree for the worse, he will telegraph to me without a moment's delay."
"That's it: I shan't forget," said Mr. Denison. "What with this telegraphing, and one thing or another, it will seem as if you were no farther away than the next village."
"I shall feel that we are very far apart," said Ella. "You forget what a long time it takes to travel from Italy to Heron Dyke."
"Nothing like the time it used to take when I was a young spark. I remember when I went the grand tour as it was called--but there, there, we have something else to talk about now. Anyhow, railroads are a wonderful invention."
There were twenty things on Ella's tongue that she would have liked to speak of, but that it might be more wise to refrain from. Dr. Jago's warning words rarely left her thoughts.
"Be sure to wrap yourself up warmly when you go out in the carriage, uncle."
"Ay, ay, dearie, I won't forget."
"I shall come back to you the first week in the new year. Two months will be quite long enough to be away from home."
"We have agreed to see about that, you know, my lassie. I will send you word when I feel that I want you, and then you will come. Not before, I think--not before."
It was a topic that Ella dared not pursue further. She kissed his hand with tears in her eyes. He patted her cheek lovingly.
"Oh! why does he persist so strongly in sending me away?" she thought. "Hubert let fall a word--an inadvertent one, I think--the other night, that they feared I should be melancholy in this gloomy old house in the winter. It is gloomy now, but I could have put up with that very well."
"If I get on as famously for the next month or two as I have for the last three weeks," said the Squire, "I shall be able to drive to the station and meet you when you come home. And then when the sun comes out warm next spring, I can take your arm, and we can walk again in the peach alley as we used to do. Why not?"
Was there something wistful in his voice, as he spoke thus, that caused Ella to glance up quickly into his face.
"Are you sure, uncle, that you are really as much stronger and better as you say you are?" she asked quickly, and with ill-concealed anxiety.
One of his old suspicious flashes came into his eyes, but it died away next moment.
"Am I sure, dearie? Why--why, what makes you ask that? You can see for yourself that I'm better. Yes, Jago's making another man of me--another man."
"Tell me the truth, uncle," she exclaimed passionately, "whyis it that you are driving me away? I am sure there is some special reason for it."
For a moment or two the Squire did not answer: his face was working with some inward excitement, his fingers, stroking the hand he held, trembled visibly.
"The house is getting uncanny, child," he said at last, "and I won't suffer my pretty one to be in it through the dark months. Before another winter comes round, perhaps the mystery will be solved; I hope it will be. Any way, we shall by that time have become more reconciled to it."
"But, uncle----"
"No objection, my dear one. You have never made any to my will yet, and you must not begin now. Understand, child: I am sending you away forthe best; the best for you and for me; and you must be guided by me implicitly, as you ever have been."
Ella sighed--and would not let him see her tears.
The yellow sunlight faded and vanished from the gloomy room, the old portraits on the walls shrank farther back into the twilight of their frames and were lost to view, the log on the hearth crackled and glowed more redly bright as darkness crept on apace, and still those two sat hand in hand, speaking a few words now and then, but mostly silent. At length the moment of departure came, the carriage was at the door, and Mrs. Carlyon entered, ready for travelling.
The Squire grasped the back of his chair with one hand; he was trembling in every limb. Mrs. Carlyon bade him goodbye quietly and without fuss. He kissed her, and held her hand.
"Gertrude," he said, "into your hands I commit my one earthly treasure. I charge you with the care of it. Never forget!"
Ella clung to him, and laid her head upon his breast. His rugged features worked convulsively. He lifted her face tenderly between his hands and kissed her several times.
"Let me stay with you, uncle. Why drive me away?" she said imploringly.
For a moment there came into his eyes a gleam of agony terrible to see: it was a look which Ella never forgot.
"No--no--it must not be: I am doing for the best," he repeated, in a hoarse whisper; "I tell it you. Farewell, my sweetest and best--farewell. Go now--go now," he whispered, as he sank into his chair and pointed to the door.
Hubert Stone, looking every inch a gentleman, attended them to the station, sitting on the box with Barnet. Higson went inside with the ladies. At the station, Ella took Hubert aside for a private word.
"You will be sure not to forget your instructions, Hubert?"
"I shall not forget one of them, Miss Ella," was his answer. "You may rely upon that."
"You must watch my uncle narrowly. Should you see the approach of any change in him, telegraph to me. Question your friend, Dr. Jago, continually of his state. Say nothing to my uncle. I will take the responsibility if you send for me. You will always know where we are, for I shall keep you well informed."
The young man bowed. He was afraid to let his eyes meet hers: she might perhaps have fathomed the burning secret that lay half hidden there--his passionate love.
"I trust you, Hubert remember that: I have only you to trust to now at Heron Dyke. And now, goodbye."
Hubert clasped the hand she extended to him. And the next moment he assisted her into the carriage.
"Ah, if I might dare to think it would ever be!" he groaned, watching the train as it puffed out of the station. "And, I do think it may, I fear, more than is wholesome for me; for the hope is little short of madness."
At that time the county of Norfolk had been startled from its propriety by the ill-judged action of a young lady belonging to the family of one of its magnates. She had married one of her father's men-servants. Hubert Stone lit his cigar, and quitted the station to return home, thinking of this. Strange to say, he saw in it some encouragement for himself.
"If Miss G. can stoop to marry a low fellow like that, surely there's nothing so very outrageous in my aspiring to Ella Winter! I am well educated; I can behave as a gentleman; I am good-looking. There's nothing against me but birth--and fortune. She will have enough of the latter if she comes into Heron Dyke--and if Jago's clever, I expect she will. Any way her fortune will be a fair one, for the Squire must have saved hoards of money. She can well afford to dispense with money in whomsoever she may marry: and if she can only be brought to overlook the disadvantage of my birth----"
"Good-evening, Mr. Stone. And how's the Squire?"
Hubert's dreams were thus cut short. He answered the question mechanically, and stopped to talk to the chance acquaintance who had accosted him.
Meanwhile Ella and Mrs. Carlyon were speeding London-ward as fast as the Great Eastern Railway could carry them. At Cambridge there was a stoppage for two or three minutes. Suddenly Mrs. Carlyon uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Ella, look! Look there! that is surely Mr. Conroy. He is looking for a seat."
Ella bent forward. The next moment Mr. Conroy recognised them. He advanced to the carriage window, and raised his hat.
"Who, in the name of wonder, expected to see you here?" exclaimed Mrs. Carlyon, as she held out her hand. "I thought you were in Ashantee."
"It is one of my privileges to turn up in unexpected places," he answered. Then he shook hands with Ella and inquired after Mr. Denison.
"Were you looking for a place?--are you going to town?" asked Mrs. Carlyon. "If you don't mind travelling with unprotected females, there's plenty of room here."
And, thanking her, into the carriage stepped Edward Conroy, with the frank look and smile that Ella remembered so well.
"Well, if he is not a cool one!" thought the discerning Higson to herself. "I'd not mind answering for it that in some way he got to know Miss Ella would be here, and came down from town on purpose to meet her. I can read it in his eyes. There's no answering for what these venturesome young gents will do!"
"And will you kindly explain to us, Mr. Conroy, what business you have to be in England when you ought to be sketching black people out in Africa?"
"Within twenty-four hours of the time I was to have sailed, I received a telegram informing me that my father was dangerously ill. Under the circumstances, I could not sail; I had to go to him instead. I stayed some time with him, left him better, and then found that Dempster had been sent in my place."
"And a very fortunate thing too."
Conroy laughed.
"You lack enterprise, Mrs. Carlyon. I am afraid that you would never do for a special correspondent. Do you expect to make a long stay in London this time?" he asked, turning to Ella.
"We intend starting for the Continent the day after tomorrow," answered Mrs. Carlyon. "You had better come and dine with us tomorrow evening: there will be no one but ourselves and Mr. Bootle."
"I shall be very happy to do so," replied Conroy. "What place are you going to make your head-quarters while you are away?"
"I had some thoughts of San Remo, but we shall probably be birds of passage and not stay long in any one place."
Conroy saw that Ella was silent, and guessed the parting with her uncle had been a sad one. What he did not know was, how sweet his presence and company were to her. She had been thinking of him that very day--thinking of him sadly as of one whom she might never see again; and now he was here, sitting opposite to her. What rare chance had brought him?--She did not talk much, she was satisfied to hear his voice and see his face; at present she craved nothing more. The journey she so much dreaded had all at once been invested with a charm, with an unexpected sweetness, which she never tried to analyse: enough for her that it was there.
Conroy saw the ladies into their carriage at the London terminus, and bade them goodbye till the following evening. Then he lighted a cigar and set out to walk to his rooms in the Adelphi. He was in a musing mood, debating some question with himself as he walked along.
"Shall I tell Mrs. Carlyon a certain secret, or shall I not?" he thought. "Would she keep it to herself? No, no; better be on the safe side," he presently decided: "and the time is hardly ripe to tell it to anyone. What would Squire Denison say if it were whispered to him?"
On this very evening, while these ladies were on their way to London, a strange thing happened at Heron Dyke.
It was about eight o'clock. Fitch the saddler had come up from Nullington about some little matter of business, and Aaron Frost sent one of the housemaids to fetch him a certain whip that was hanging up in the hall. As Martha left the room with her candle she met her fellow-servant, Ann, and the latter turned to accompany her. The girls never cared to go about the big house singly after dark. They went along chattering merrily, and thinking of anything rather than unpleasant subjects. Martha was repeating a ludicrous story just told in the kitchen by the saddler, and could hardly tell it for laughing.
As in many old mansions, round three sides of the entrance-hall there ran an oaken gallery, some twenty feet above the ground, from which various doors gave access to different parts of the house. This gallery was reached from the hall by a broad and shallow flight of stairs.
"How cold this place always strikes one," exclaimed Ann, as they entered the hall.
"It would want many a dozen of candles to light it up properly," remarked Martha.
Having found the whip, they turned to retrace their steps, when Martha, happening to glance up at the gallery, gave utterance to a low cry, and grasped her companion by the arm. Ann's eyes involuntarily followed the same direction, and a similar cry of intense terror burst from her lips.
They saw the face of the missing girl--the face of Katherine Keen, gazing down upon them from the gallery. The face was very pale; white as that of the dead. The figure was leaning over the balustrade of the gallery, and its eyes gazed down into theirs with a sad, fixed, weary look. It seemed to be clothed in something dark, pulled partly over its head and grasped at the throat by the white, slender fingers. For fully half a minute, the two girls stood and stared up at the figure in sheer incapability, and the figure looked sadly down upon them. At length it moved--it turned--it took a step forward, and the servants, both of them, distinctly heard the sound of a faint far-away sigh. Could it be possible that the figure meant to come downstairs? The spell that had held the girls was broken; with low smothered cries of terror they turned and fled, clinging to each other.
How the one dropped the whip and the other the candle, and how they at length gained the kitchen, and burst into it with their terror-stricken faces and their unhappy tale, they never knew. Fitch the saddler gazed in open-eyed amazement, as well he might; the deaf and stolid cook looked in from the cooking-kitchen--in which congenial place she preferred to sit, surrounded by her saucepans.
The girls sobbed forth all the dismal story. Their mistress, Mrs. Stone, flung her apron over her head as she listened, and sank back in her chair in dismay equal to theirs. But old Aaron was so indignant, so scandalised, at what he called their senseless folly, that he lost his breath in a rage, and gave each of them a month's warning on the spot.